By Alex L. Goldfayn

August 22, 2006

I don't know about your laptop, but my new MacBook laptop operates like a stove top.

For some reason, many of today's laptops give off a hellish heat.

When I brought up my burning-hot MacBook on Saturday's radio show, callers phoned in their complaints with Gateway, Sony and H-P laptops operating at high temperatures too.

Which led to these two fantastic discoveries:

Several listeners recommended these two sub-$25 solutions for not burning yourself "down there" when you've got a steaming laptop.The Lapinator: A
heat barrier designed to go between your laptop and you, the Lapinator
uses
"Thinsulate Insulation" to keep things cool for about $25. It's pictured at right The Coolpad: Another laptop heat blocker, available in two versions: a $20 travel version and a $25 "podium" unit that's pictured at left.

If your laptop's bottom is too hot to bear, these products can help. Your fellow consumers went to the trouble of phoning in to the radio show, unsolicited, to talk them up.

August 13, 2006

One of the best and most useful digital photography deals around right now is at a California-based services that will scan up to 1,000 of your printed photos for a measly $50. If you think about the amount of time it would take to scan just 100 pictures yourself -- several hours easy for most flat-bed scanners -- this becomes something close to the steal of the century.

August 03, 2006

If you've never listened to a podcast, here's your chance! The current edition of the Digital Photography Show, a podcast hosted by Scott Sherman and Michael Stein, features a lengthy interview with me about my new book, Going Digital.

The Digital Photography Show mostly focuses on topics of interest to photo enthusiasts. Things like tips for shooting with digital SLR cameras, and PhotoShop techniques. It's free, and each show is packed with useful tips and suggestions.

To listen, just click here, and then click the play button under Show 16. Our interview begins around the 20th minute.

Also this week, Farah Silver, who edits the highly useful SheFindsMom.com site kindly put up a review of Going Digital today. If you're a mom, have a look at SheFindsMom.com, as it lists countless "shopping finds." Yes, this site, along with its parent site, SheFinds.com, helps women shop. As if you need it! (My wife says you do.)

August 01, 2006

If I were forced to pick a single digital photo product that represents the amazing things you can do with your pictures it would be the Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver.

I'll take it one step further:

If your parents or grandparents are around, whether they're technically-proficient or not, there's one
gift you must purchase for them: The Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver.

It may be the warmest and fuzziest tech product currently on the market.

Here's an excerpt from my book, Going Digital, which ran in the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

Going Digital, by the way, as just released today from HarperCollins. It runs a measly $10 on Amazon.com and is full of neat ideas and projects for your digital pictures and home movies. Excerpt from Going Digital: Mom and the 'Magical Picture Frame'

Shirley loves getting pictures. She has children and grandchildren,
nieces and nephews, even grandnieces and grandnephews. Once a week,
sometimes more, Shirley's daughter, Joyce, sends her pictures of the
family.

"I'm the keeper of the family photos," says Joyce, 58.
"Most of the family members send me pictures, and I'm in charge of
getting them to Mom."

And so Joyce receives the pictures, sorts through them, and sends them along to her 87-year-old mother.

The
pictures don't go to Shirley as printed photos. Instead, they land
squarely on her digital picture frame, where they play as a slide show,
rotating until Joyce sends the next update.

Shirley received a Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver (about $130, www.ceiva.com)
for her 85th birthday. It consists of a 5-by-7--inch LCD screen,
surrounded by a wood frame. It plugs into an electrical outlet for
power and a regular phone line for receiving pictures. Then, like a
TiVo digital video recorder, in the middle of every night the Ceiva
"frame" dials in to check for photo updates. Any new photos are
downloaded, replacing older ones. The Ceiva receiver can store 30
pictures at a time on its internal memory.

How does the frame
know which pictures to download? It gets only pictures that you upload.
Joyce uploads the photos she wants to share with her mom to Ceiva's Web
site, and then every night the frame checks for and downloads any
pictures. Anyone who knows the password can add pictures to Shirley's
frame, which means she can get pictures from family members from all
over the country.

"Every morning, Mom goes downstairs and checks
the Ceiva first thing," Joyce said. "And she says, `Oh my! There are
new pictures!' And she calls Joycie at 7 a.m."

This is an
ingenious, effective and incredibly rewarding way to share your
pictures with the non-technical family and friends in your life. No
computer is required. No high-speed Internet connection is needed. Just
an electrical outlet and a phone jack.

Often, Joyce adds text to
her pictures, explaining details such as dates and locations. These
annotations can be added on the Ceiva Web site next to each photo. She
also uses the frame to send her mom digital holiday cards. Joyce calls
herself an "exhibiting amateur photographer" and uses her favorite
artistic shots in the cards she sends to her mom's frame.

All of this leads to the ultimate bottom line for any kind of digital tool: It makes Shirley happy.

"Oh, there's nothing like it for her. This is an absolute proven joy gift. It's ensured happiness."